LISNews: Librarian News

Wired reports that the FBI issued back dated blanket subpoenas to telcos to cover their acquisition of telco records.

While I find the Patriot Act necessary, I also find its abuse repugnant.

The DOJ's IG found:

Top officials at the FBI's counter-terrorism division signed the blanket subpoenas "retroactively to justify the FBI's acquisition of data through the exigent letters or or other informal requests."

Either do it as laws and regulations allow or don't do it at all.

Kelly writes "Amazing accounts from writer Naomi Wolf, who is finding out that, in her travels throughout the US, people are waking up to the encroaching darkness. Here's her book-related observations, "Someone else says that his friend opened his luggage to find a letter from the TSA saying that they did not appreciate his reading material. Before I go into the security lines, I find myself editing my possessions. In New York'a La Guardia, I reluctantly found myself putting a hardcover copy of Tara McKelvey's excellent Monstering, an expose of CIA interrogation practices, in a garbage can before I get in the security line; it is based on classified information. This morning at my hotel, before going to the airport, I threw away a very nice black T-shirt that said "We Will Not be Silenced" — with an Arabic translation — that someone had given me, along with a copy of poems written by detainees at Guantanamo." More here: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/12/450 2/"

Kelly writes "Looks like the next time I want to read Edward Abbey's "The Monkey Wrench Gang" or something by Noam Chomsky, I will need to listen to an audiobook version of it on my pod. Because, as it turns out, "The U.S. Government," according to the Washington Post, "is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials." Don't you feel safer from terrorists knowing the feds know what we are reading while traveling? I wonder why they need to keep such information in a database for 15 years? That's right — 15 years, not a typo. More here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2007/09/21/AR2007092102347.html?hpid=topnews"

Seemingly acceptable though he may be to Republicans and Democrats alike in Congress, President Bush's new appointee for the position of Attorney General, Michael B. Mukasey, is a strong supporter of the Patriot Act. The International Herald Tribune reported that Mukasey said in a speech in 2004, "That awkward name may very well be the worst thing about the statute."

More cautiously, The Capitol Times of Madison, WI reports "For instance, in a May 10, 2004, op-ed, which was published as the debate about fixing fundamental flaws in the Patriot Act was heating up, Mukasey defended some of the act's most extreme excesses and dismissively told critics to avoid what he termed "reflexive" or "recreational" criticisms of it." The paper calls the candidate "something less than a rule-of-law man when it comes to constitutional matters. As a contributor to the right-wing editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, the retired judge has written several articles that suggest he would have trouble balancing civil liberties and national security concerns."

The Wall Street Journal, endorses Mukasey thusly "Earth to Washington: You finally have the right man for the right job at the right time. Try not to screw this one up." New York Times reports on Mukasey's close connection to Republican Presidential Candidate Rudy Guiliani and others in the New York legal community.

Here's today's NY Times editorial on the nominee, which refers to statements Mukasey made in 2004 denouncing the "hysteria" of Patriot Act critics, and lashing out at the American Library Association for trying to protect patrons' privacy..